Searching for Sour Milk (and our weekly menu)

We had a pretty productive weekend despite the chilly weather. We framed out half of the chicken coop, finished the rabbit hutch and their play area (don't they look happy?), and I hung a tire swing (that I scored for free at Discount Tire!). We are also excited to see some of our seeds sprouting already.

Last weekend we moved the pigs' shed out to the pasture so they have more grass to eat, and (bonus!) we don't have to deal with their excrement anymore. Everyone seems to be loving this arrangement. There's been a bit of drama with the goats head-butting the pigs, but it's mostly because Zoey (our youngest doe, at 5 months old) wants to play with them. Maybelline is growing fast, however, and soon she will be able to give Zoey a run for her money. We're confident she can stick up for herself.

One very productive aspect of our weekend was hitting up Market on the Move. Have you heard of MOM? It's a non-profit that salvages produce that has expired or is about to expire. For a $10 donation you walk away with about 60 pounds of produce! The best produce goes first (obviously), and since we didn't get in (there was a long line!) until about an hour after it started, there wasn't much we were interested in eating. Fortunately, our goal wasn't to feed our family--it was to feed our pigs. We came home with 2 1/2 boxes of squash, tomatoes, and a few bell peppers. Hubby and I cut them and stuffed them into 6 gallon zip baggies, 2 plastic containers (about 18"x12"x6" each), and still had about a gallon leftover that we fed the pigs over the weekend. We are weaning them off the pellets, supplementing with dairy (homemade yogurt, some milk past its "best by" date, and cottage cheese that my kids leftover), and letting them graze and root in the pasture. We believe this will save us a great deal of money, as well as resulting in healthier, tastier pork. We're hoping to find a good local source of dairy, no longer intended for human consumption.

I found that with all the work we've been doing outside, I have had a hard time fitting in meal prep. This resulted in two quick take-out (though Paleo, except Hubby's) meals, and I want to try to cut that down a bit. I planned our meals for the next week with the intent on cutting down some of that prep time. On the menu this week:

• fish tacos (I'll make similar to this recipe, adding diced jalapenos, but prepping the fish in this fashion--not "breaded")
• Crockpot Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps, though I'll probably eat mine as a salad, topping with blue cheese crumbles
• turkey (didn't get to this last week; my turkey is taking forever to thaw in my garage fridge!)
• turkey burritos (I'll probably have a burrito bowl/salad, though Hubby will eat his with tortillas. He'll probably have tortillas with his fish tacos, too--gotta have some give and take, right??)
• shrimp scampi (and salmon for the Hubby who isn't a huge shrimp fan)
• Buffalo Chicken Wings
• salmon patties
• roast chicken 

I've been using my {small-ish} crockpot to make yogurt several times a week for the piggies, and this has caused me to switch up my menu a bit, since it wasn't available when I'd intended to use it. I think I'll be investing in a larger crockpot this week, big enough to accommodate a whole chicken. Planning to hit up Goodwill or Savers to see if they have any for cheap. I plan to start making yogurt for the kids and I soon, so it will be good to have two on hand. 

I'm seeing some improvement in Sissy, which I'll share later this week. For now, do you have any recommendations for my dairy quest? 

Today I'm linking to Menu Plan Monday at OrgJunkie.com and Menu Monday!